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Why? Primarily because it's a 7/8 guitar with a 25.5 inch scale and pretty much the narrowest and thinnest neck you can find. I've got stubby digits, and I find this neck suits my ergonomics better than other standard thin neck offerings.
Anyhow, here is what I did:
- stainless steel extra jumbo (.118 x .58) frets
- bone nut
- swapped the terribly cheap and useless stock two post tremolo for a mexican Strat 6 screw tremolo. It's pretty much the only one I could find that would fit because of the narrow string spacing. The stock Jackson tremolo string spacing is 52mm, the Mexican one is just a hair wider. It works, but between the stainless frets and this new tremolo the tone was really pingy on the B and high E strings so I got some graphtech saddles which eliminated that. Additionally, I put some raw vintage strat tremolo springs on it.
I set the tremolo to float so I can raise it an interval, and it works really well unlike the original one.
- MIJ Jackson tuners for the terrible Chinese cheapos it came with
- spraypainted the stock red body with Krylon Fusion satin black. It doesn't fuse as well as I thought it would, and is scraping/rubbing off here and there, though it's kind of a cool look. I will likely have to repaint it once a year.
I kept the stock pickups and electronics, as they are quite useable. I may upgrade them to Ibanez V7 and V8 pickups sometime. I kinda like how those sound, too.
The guitar rips nicely and plays really well.
I did all the mods except for the refret.
Guitar: $170 new
Refret: $250
Bone Nut: $90
Tremolo: $25
Saddles $50
Raw Vintage Springs: $30
Spray paint: $5
Tuners: $30
Approximate Total Cost: $650
Because the neck is so unusually small, I consider this to be well worth the money. The frets will last a lifetime and it suits my hands like no other guitar.
Here is an awful, blurry picture:
Anyhow, here is what I did:
- stainless steel extra jumbo (.118 x .58) frets
- bone nut
- swapped the terribly cheap and useless stock two post tremolo for a mexican Strat 6 screw tremolo. It's pretty much the only one I could find that would fit because of the narrow string spacing. The stock Jackson tremolo string spacing is 52mm, the Mexican one is just a hair wider. It works, but between the stainless frets and this new tremolo the tone was really pingy on the B and high E strings so I got some graphtech saddles which eliminated that. Additionally, I put some raw vintage strat tremolo springs on it.
I set the tremolo to float so I can raise it an interval, and it works really well unlike the original one.
- MIJ Jackson tuners for the terrible Chinese cheapos it came with
- spraypainted the stock red body with Krylon Fusion satin black. It doesn't fuse as well as I thought it would, and is scraping/rubbing off here and there, though it's kind of a cool look. I will likely have to repaint it once a year.
I kept the stock pickups and electronics, as they are quite useable. I may upgrade them to Ibanez V7 and V8 pickups sometime. I kinda like how those sound, too.
The guitar rips nicely and plays really well.
I did all the mods except for the refret.
Guitar: $170 new
Refret: $250
Bone Nut: $90
Tremolo: $25
Saddles $50
Raw Vintage Springs: $30
Spray paint: $5
Tuners: $30
Approximate Total Cost: $650
Because the neck is so unusually small, I consider this to be well worth the money. The frets will last a lifetime and it suits my hands like no other guitar.
Here is an awful, blurry picture:
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